“This gull came whirling around me very close and was screaming in my face”

Savage seagulls hospitalised a pensioner during the latest in a growing number of incidents across Cumbria.

Retired Brian Griffin was walking home from when he found himself confronted by angry seagulls near his home in Barrow.

The plucky pensioner was undeterred but as he continued on his way the birds struck, leaving him with injuries to his head which needed hospital treatment.

He said: “When I was halfway up Douglas Street this gull came whirling around me very close and was screaming in my face.

“And then there was another and another doing the same thing – it was like something out of Hitchcock’s The Birds. It was frightening.”

Mr Griffin said the birds eventually backed off and he staggered towards the Premier store where staff bandaged up his injuries before taking him to Furness General Hospital.

I wonder if this happened to Brian because he was strolling along with a bit of a chip on his shoulder?

Interestingly, this is the second flappy bird-related story featured on The Nether Regions where the victim has compared the incident to Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ (example one is here). A bit more imagination in future from our bird-savaged local news fodder, please.